Even if you don’t trust the Iranians farther than you can throw them, the National Intelligence Estimate on their nuclear program should enable you to breathe a sigh of relief. They will not have a bomb anytime soon – 2013 at the earliest according to the NIE - and their program is still plagued with technical problems.

But it is important to look at that program and realize what the NIE is actually saying.

Iran no longer has an active bomb program. This does not mean they have abandoned the idea of building a nuclear weapon – far from it, I’d say. What it means is that the parts of their nuclear program dealing with bomb making – weapons design, warhead development, delivery vehicle modifications, and probably the bulk of their experimental work – has been shut down or severely curtailed. It is also important to remember that much of what remains still has dual use capabilities, that while they are enriching uranium to reactor grade levels, they are certainly learning how to enrich it further in order to have weapons grade uranium.

The sanctions are working. It is clear that at least part of the reason the Iranians shut down those parts of their nuclear program dealing exclusively with bomb making is because they feared further sanctions.

The date of 2013 is probably too pessimistic but is a consensus date that everyone would sign off on. In 2 years, Iran will have several thousand more centrifuges up and running at Nantanz. At that point, assuming they wanted to restart their bomb program, it would probably be a matter of months – a year at most – before they built a bomb. A date closer to 2011 is probably more realistic but was left off in deference to those (and there is apparently a faction in our intel community who believe this) who think Iran is too technologically backward to have a bomb much before 2015.

The threat of an Iranian bomb will remain as long as Iran is enriching its own uranium.

Jeffrey Lewis chalks up the change to a bureaucratic shuffle initiated by former President Khatami that sought to forestall the matter of Iranian nukes from being taken before the UNSC:

I made this argument in a July 2005 blog post, pointing to a speech about Iranian decision-making by Hassan Rowhani that I called â€œwonkpornâ€ and suggesting that the bureaucratic reorganization undertaken by Khatami might later been seen as the â€œbeginning [of] a process of negotiations that constrained his more hardline successor.â€

Iran was publicly defiant and resisted cooperating with the IAEA investigation. Yet internally, there were signs that the government was anxious to avoid a potential confrontation with the United Nations. In an apparent attempt to facilitate cooperation with the IAEA, Iran consolidated decision-making authority over its nuclear program around October 2003. Hassan Rowhani, who was the head of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC)â€”Iranâ€™s top decision-making body on security-related issuesâ€”was put in charge of nuclear diplomacy. Previously, oversight of the issue had been divided between Iranâ€™s Foreign Ministry and its Atomic Energy Organization.

For those disposed to disbelieve or reject this NIE, it would be well to remember that if a consensus about something this vital to our security was found among such a fractious, quarrelling, multi-agenda driven group of spooks, you can bet the information it’s based on is pretty solid.

Now we come to the distasteful question of what in God’s name the Bush Administration has been doing sitting on this damn thing for year? And beyond that, is there any Bush supporter out there who believes anything this president says about national security anymore?

We have been treated to the most bombastic rhetoric emanating from this White House for the last year especially – all the while they were sitting on this NIE and its conclusions about the Iranian bomb program. How do you square Bush’s “World War III” comment with what’s in the NIE? Or any other dire warning we’ve heard coming from the White House?

I understand the need for regime change in Iran. I am not naive enough to believe that the Iranian government doesn’t represent a threat to our friends, allies, and interests in the region – nukes or no nukes. But this Administration has made a nasty habit for 7 years now of employing rhetoric on national security matters that doesn’t match what the situation actually is.

Democratic members of the various intelligence committees saw the NIE (or a summary or a verbal report or something) and went ballistic. Footnotes and dissents are one thing, but withholding a report whose primary conclusion is 180 degrees contrary to years of administration innuendo produced a rebellion. Somebody who got briefed must has threatened something pretty serious if the NIE didn’t see the light of day.

Like I said, just a guess. But who else has the clout to force Bush, Cheney, and McConnell to change course?

I don’t necessarily see a change in course since it’s pretty obvious the Administration had been on the diplomatic track for months now. What the NIE does is knock the chocks from underneath the neo-cons and set them adrift. They’ve got nowhere to go now – unless they want to argue that the NIE is wrong.

For different reasons, that’s exactly the argument being made by AJ Strata:

The NIE is quite clear. We know they stopped, we have no intel on whether they are still stopped or not. The reporting that Iran has stopped as of now is not accurate. Here is the scary part – Iran is still processing fuel! They donâ€™t NEED to process fuel for Nuclear Energy. Russia has offered to SELL THEM fuel if they return the spent fuel so it cannot be used to make weapons

.

While AJ is right, that Russian offer was conditional on the Iranians halting their enrichment program – something that Ahmadinejad has now made (for largely domestic reasons) a national sovereignty issue and therefore, non negotiable.

Is bombing still a viable option? Unless you believe that the mullahs will not be dissuaded from eventually restarting the bomb making parts of their nuclear program then taking out the infrastructure is still on the table.

I still think bombing would be a bad idea – at least until we can say for sure that they have restarted that part of their program. The fact is, there is no reason for military action against Iran at the moment and every reason to continue applying pressure via sanctions to try and get them to stop enriching uranium. It also gives us time to develop and encourage those elements in Iran who could work to moderate or replace the regime – the latter being much more likely than the former.

The point is that time is once again our friend. Let’s use it wisely.

By: Rick Moran at 6:02 pm

13 Responses to “NIE REPORT ON IRANIAN NUKES: QUALIFIED GOOD NEWS”

1

Bill Arnold Said:
7:34 pm

My pessimistic guess/fear as to how this plays out:
(1) The Iranians obfuscate how much LEU (low-enriched uranium)they produce, enough to make diversion possible. This could be done in part by making it hard to estimate accurately (with small error bars) how effectively their disclosed centrifuge line is running.
(2) LEU is diverted (incrementally or in a larger diversion).
(3) Smaller hidden underground centrifuge line finishes up production of enough HEU for 1 device (or 2 devices using an advanced design).
(4) 1-2 devices constructed, sometime between 2009-2011.
The rest, including whether or not to test, flows according to political considerations.

Step (1) is key. Less uncertainty means less material can be covertly diverted.

2

hass Said:
7:50 pm

Why should we believe that Iran EVER had a nuclear weapons program at all?

If the 2005 NIE report was wrong when it claimed with “high confidence” that Iran had a active nuclear weapons program, why should the 2007 NIE be any more credible when it claims that Iran had a nuclear weapons program until 2003? If Iran really had a nuclear weapons program until 2003 as the new report claims, then why has the IAEA found no evidence of it?

3

Rick Moran Said:
7:53 pm

You’re right.

ALl those times A.Q. Khan visited and sold them all that nuke material?

He was just on vacation.

4

Wes S. Said:
8:06 pm

Even if you donâ€™t trust the Iranians farther than you can throw them, the National Intelligence Estimate on their nuclear program should enable you to breathe a sigh of relief.

That depends on whether we can trust our own intelligence community farther than we can throw them, doesn’t it? How many things have they been wrong about in the recent past? Here’s a few:
—They grossly underestimated Saddam’s WMD capabilities before and during the first Gulf War – afterwards we found out Saddam was within six months of having a working nuclear device – and grossly overestimated them in the run-up to Gulf War II. And the spies still haven’t sastifactorily accounted for the WMD Saddam did have.
—Nobody in the intelligence community saw the Indo-Pakastani nuclear testing duel coming. Or the fall of the USSR. Or 9/11.
—Nor did they do a very good job of keeping track of what the North Koreans had and what they were doing with it. And, now, suddenly we find out that Syria was apparently building a processing plant to turn Nork plutonium into functioning nuclear weapons. Fortunately, the Mossad and the IDF were on the ball there…

I hope the NIE is right, but based on the past performance of some of our intelligence agencies I’m still skeptical. And – regardless of how the Administration and Congress try to spin this – the fact remains that the Iranians are still at war with us, as they have been since 1979. Never mind “squaring Bush’s World War III comment” with the NIE; how do you square the apocalyptic and genocidal rhetoric of Mahmoud Ahmendinajad and the mullahs with the NIE’s apparent “Relax, don’t worry” message?

5

tHePeOPle Said:
9:31 pm

Man, I can’t tell you how much I love being lied to and treated like a retarded child by this administration.

6

Junk Science Skeptic Said:
11:02 pm

So lets see, Iran won’t have a bomb till 2013, plus or minus two years. Gee, that makes me feel so much better.

Six years until nuclear armageddon in the Mideast instead of six months. I guess we can all relax and elect a Dhimmicrat.

Of course as Wes mentions, this assumes you can trust a perennially behind-the-curve intelligence community which has clearly been shown to be full of Clinton-era insurgents.

7

trentk268 Said:
12:19 am

Isn’t this the same outfit that Val Plame is working in? I realize that this fine agency is above politicking, but it just doesn’t smell right. Too many suspicious leaks, too many out and out missed happenings.

Anyone that is breathing a sigh of relief is listening to Larry Johnson & Co way too much.

According to the WaPo, Bush was first advised of this turnabout from the 2005 NIE in a preliminary briefining in August. He was only given the formal consensus a week ago. He has not been sitting on this thing for a year as you assert. Indeed, a lot of people are probably questioning why he would release this days before the UN meets to consider the next round of sanctions. The reason is clearly because he would be villified if he did not put this out until afterwards and then people really could claim he was being deliberately deceptive.

The NIE leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
The claim that “international pressure” from sanctions were the cause of Iran’s decision cease its covert nuclear weapons program is tough to square with their refusal to fully cooperate with the IAEA, therby removing the existing sanctions and the threat of future sanctions. Likewise, there is just insufficient information in the NIE to give one an indepnednet warm and fuzzy feeling about their conclusions. That said, like you, I will give our intel folks the benefit of the doubt.

Its unforgivable though that the NIE ignored Iraq. The NIE ignores the two huge elephants in the room – i.e., what role our invasion of Iraq played in Iran’s 2003 decision to stop their covert nuclear weapons program, and what role our continued presence in Iraq is effecting their decision to keep the program in stasis.

9

busboy33 Said:
2:27 pm

@ RM:
“Iran no longer has an active bomb program. This does not mean they have abandoned the idea of building a nuclear weapon â€“ far from it, Iâ€™d say.”

The “far from it, I’d say”—is that based off NIE text or external sources?

[...] But this is all speculation and strange patterns. Some have taken me to task for pointing out the obvious – why continue on with centrifuge development if the sole purpose is to generate electrical energy for civilian use? Rick Moran was one of those who too easily dismissed the point I made that Iran can get fuel right now from Russia without the need for the centrifuges: For different reasons, thatâ€™s exactly the argument being made by AJ Strata: The NIE is quite clear. We know they stopped, we have no intel on whether they are still stopped or not. The reporting that Iran has stopped as of now is not accurate. Here is the scary part â€“ Iran is still processing fuel! They donâ€™t NEED to process fuel for Nuclear Energy. Russia has offered to SELL THEM fuel if they return the spent fuel so it cannot be used to make weapons. [...]

Now we come to the distasteful question of what in Godâ€™s name the Bush Administration has been doing sitting on this damn thing for year?

He said specifically that he was just briefed about this a week ago.

12

busboy33 Said:
8:14 pm

“He said specifically that he was just briefed about this a week ago.”

yep. he sure did. His head of intelligence came up to him in August and told him there was important news about Iran they were vetting, and he said “okay”. I suppose he didn’t want to hear it until it was crystal clear. Let the IC vet the info properly.
I wonder where all these claims of Cheney leaning on the IC to “hawk up” the NIC come from:http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/12/seymour_hersh_bush_admin_has_k.php
Well, if the Administration said they didn’t hear it until last week, then that settles it.

13

MunDane Said:
9:24 pm

You know, there comes a time when one has to question the sanity of saying anything to some of the nation. Bush could come on TV and say, “You know, I have personally liquidated my entire fortune and sent the money to NARAL, The ACLU and Joss Whedon to film another season of “Firefly” for the internet.” The HuffPo posters would retort with “Fascist Pig! You ignored the whales!”

The NIE is like that, a year ago, there was a rumor that the nuclear enrichment wasn’t going so swimmingly, this December they verified it. It got released. “Not good enough!” some scream.

Great. The same group willing to give Bill a pass on OBL because he didn’t KNOW that he was a psychotic, mass-murdering, nihilist in the legal sense before 9/11, want 100% accuracy from the exact same apparatus.